EdAction
Maple River Education Coalition PAC
105 Peavey Rd, St 116 
Chaska, MN  55318 
952-361-4931
http://www.EdAction.org
E-mail

Simmering summer news from MrEdCo's president
June 19, 2000

It is hard to believe that the 2000 Legislative Session was almost a month ago.  For me, the last month meant catching up on all the business and family issues that were put on hold while I was at the Capitol or in our MrEdCo office.  One of those family issues was really a celebration.  Our first child and only son graduated from Maple River High School in Mapleton, MN.  This is the same school district from which I resigned my position of Vice Chair over the implementation of the Profile of Learning almost two years ago.  

It has been hard to watch the advancement of the Profile and the effects of diminishing academics on our son but even more so for our next child, a daughter who just finished her sophomore year.  What is to become of her?  How many content standards will she be required to complete this coming year? Will she have to give up the idea of doing her Post Secondary Education Option at a private school because the school will remove itself from PSEO rather than be forced to align its college PSEO courses with the Profile of Learning?

Just when we thought that we had found a way out of the Profile of Learning through the PSEO option for our daughter's junior and senior years, that option was taken away when our legislature expanded the Profile of Learning into our state colleges and universities, the University of Minnesota and Minnesota's private colleges.  Homeschoolers and private school students who have avoided the Profile of Learning will no longer be able to do so if they choose PSEO.

If it seems like we have been a little quiet lately, it is largely due to the fact that our phone has been ringing off the hook with parents, teachers and school board members looking for an explanation of the new Profile statute language concerning the number of content standards that a district may now require.

We thought you might be interested in reading the exact language and seeing first-hand what all the ruckus is about.  Here is the language from SF 3286 that was passed in the final hours of the 2000 Legislative Session concerning content standards, who determines them, how many are required, how many must be implemented and what is the timetable:
 

[120B.02, Sec. 2, para. (h) "School districts must integrate required and elective content standards in the scope and sequence of the district curriculum."]

[120B.02, Sec. 3, subd. 1a, para. (a) "Not withstanding any rule or law to the contrary, by August 15 of each year, each school district, area learning center, and charter school must notify the commissioner of the preparatory and high school content standards required at each site under paragraph (b).

(b)

(1) Each public school site, by a majority vote of the licensed teachers and administrators at the site voting jointly and by a majority vote of the school board;
(2) each area learning center, by a majority vote of the licensed teachers and administrators at the site voting jointly and by a majority vote of the school board of the district in which the center is located; and
(3) each charter school by a majority vote of the licensed teachers and administrators at the charter school voting jointly and with approval of the school's sponsor, must determine the number of preparatory and high school content standards that the school site requires students to complete, including the number of high school content standards a student must complete to graduate.

(c) If a school site and the local school board, the area learning center and the school board of the district in which the center is located, or a charter school and its sponsor, are unable to agree on the preparatory or high school content standards required for students under paragraph (b), students at the school site must complete the state-required content standards. 

(d) In addition to the reporting requirement under paragraph (a), a district, area learning center, and charter school shall report to the commissioner the schedule, by school year, that each school site will use to implement all the state required preparatory and high school content standards. 

(e) Each district shall continue to implement the profile of learning, provide learning opportunities for all students in all preparatory content standards in learning areas one to nine, and provide learning opportunities for students sufficient to meet the state graduation requirements in the high school content standards in all learning areas.  A district shall offer at least one foreign language in learning area ten.

(f) To implement preparatory and high school content standards, school sites must work to improve the scope and sequence of curriculum, research-based instructional skills of teachers and other district staff who work with students, and alternative assessments of student achievement."]

Perhaps you can already understand why school sites all over Minnesota are in total chaos.  This language is clearly language that appears to give districts, learning centers, and charter schools flexibility with regard to content standards and then goes on to take all the flexibility back.  Please review our following points:

1. If the vote of teachers and administrators voting jointly does not agree with the elected school board's majority vote, each site must require all the state required content standards.  The school board does not hold any final authority to make this decision for a school district.

2. Charter schools may choose to require fewer content standards but the sponsor must agree and the sponsor in many cases is the Department of Children, Families and Learning.  This does not allow the charter school the independence that is the intent of the charter school philosophy.

3. If the boards/sponsors agree with the teachers and administrators, fewer content standards may be required, temporarily. The idea that districts/centers/charter schools may do their own thing is totally false.  This is only a temporary release valve for public frustration with the clear message that schools must move toward requiring all the state required content standards.

4. The Aug. 15 deadline for submitting the site's number of required content standards to the commissioner is so unworkable that many districts will require them all simply because they are all in place, students are already registered and all the content standards are embedded in the curriculum.

5. It is clear that zero required content standards are not even an option.  The statute clearly infers that the sites must submit a list of their required content standards, not the number they are or are not doing.

6. More importantly, districts may temporarily require fewer content standards at all levels, but they must submit a schedule, by year, of how they will implement all the preparatory and high school content standards.

7. The statute also makes it clear that there is no way out of the Profile of Learning and that districts must continue to implement all the preparatory content standards and all the high school content standards to meet the state graduation requirement.

8. The intent from paragraph (f) is to make it clear that districts will work to make the Profile of Learning work.  This will be done through the Profile of Learning "Best Practices Network" that was established in this law as well as the new Profile "Tools Library."

You may also be interested to know that shenanigans are going on all over the state to sustain all the state required content standards.  For example, we have heard of school districts not allowing all the teachers and administrators at a site to vote.  They simply maintain that the site's curriculum board or grad standards board is representative of the all teachers and administrators and their vote is sufficient to meet the state requirements of a vote.  We, of course, know that the majority of these boards were set up with individuals that support the Profile of Learning and are closely controlled by the DCFL.

Another way in which districts are staying with all the state required content standards is by the administration, who also work closely with the DCFL, telling the teachers and school board that the number of required content standards can be changed at any time and rather than rush into the decision of which to require and which not to require, all will be required.  Then, when school starts they will review the number and make changes at that time.

This is such a bold deception, but unfortunately, it is working in some schools.  The law is very clear that the decision must by made by Aug. 15 and there is no permissive language to say that the number can be changed once school starts.  Does anyone really believe that the commissioner would allow the school to change the number of required content standards after Aug. 15 for that school year?  What then was the purpose of the Aug. 15 deadline in the first place?

I wish I could name the schools that told me they were going to choose zero required content standards only to find out that they had been misled, that zero is not an option, and that they must implement all state required content standards, regardless of how many they require.

Having to embed all the required content standards in all regular coursework, having to prove that Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate courses measure up to the Profile and colleges doing the same, there really is no escape from the Profile of Learning in the K-12 public school experience.

As a school board member, I would do just what the commissioner, the MSBA, the MREA, EDMN, Sen. Moe, Sen. Pogemiller, Speaker Sviggum and Rep. Ness have been claiming that the new law allows.  I would exempt all the 9^th and 10^th graders from the Profile graduation requirements, quit using performance based assessments and rubric scoring, and let the commissioner tell me that as an independent school district we do not have the right to choose zero content standards, required or otherwise.

This bill deepens the deception and manipulation that has surrounded the Profile of Learning since its inception.  With this in mind, it is most disturbing to read Speaker Steve Sviggum's quote in the May 31, 2000 issue of Education Week:

"When you are cooperating with the Senate and compromising with the governor, you don't get everything you want. From my perspective the bill was an incremental step in the right direction." (emphasis added)

We just thought we should set the record straight.  It is an ugly job, but somebody had to do it.  

Hello to the new education coalition in Pine River, MN,  the South Crow River Coalition, the Tonka Bay Education Coalition and the West Lake Minnetonka Education Coalition.  Hang tough!

Renee T. Doyle,
President
Maple River Education Coalition

EdAction - 105 Peavey Rd, Ste 116, Chaska, MN  55318 
952-361-4931 - edaction@lakes.com - (c) EdAction - All rights reserved.